At DIY site Curbly Chris Job shares a simple alarm clock hack. For years he had an alarm clock with a nice dim display. When it broke he went in search of a replacement but failed to find one that wasn’t . His solution came in form of a sliced up binder divider (the clear, usually tinted, plastic tabs you put in between paper in a binder). He sliced to fit the display, spritzed it with a little water to help it cling to the plastic, and pressed it in place. The plastic dims the display enough–as seen in the before/after picture above–that he doesn’t need to cover it up to get a good night’s sleep.

Jason Fitzpatrick is a warranty-voiding DIYer who spends his days cracking opening cases and wrestling with code so you don't have to. If it can be modded, optimized, repurposed, or torn apart for fun he's interested (and probably already at the workbench taking it apart). You can follow him on Twitter if you'd like.

Published 02/28/11

DID YOU KNOW?

If you stretch a regular Slinky out to its maximum length, modern Slinky toys are 65 feet long (the Slinky JR is 29.3 feet long and the original Slinky from the 1940s is 80 feet long).